THE UNEXPECTED
Next day Mara was quite her old indifferent self. With feminine craft,
she denied what she had said, even though five witnesses were ready to
repeat the words. "I didn't know what I was saying," said Mara
impatiently. "Of course, the heat was too much for me."
"The heat?" repeated her father; "in January?"
"Beckleigh isn't England. My nerves are out of order.--Count Akira had
some funny Japanese scent on his handkerchief.--Theodore was looking
at me, and that always upsets me." And in this way she made idle
excuses, none of which would hold water. "I wish you would leave me
alone," she ended, angrily.
As there was nothing else for it, she was left alone, and the queer
episode was passed over. Mara was polite to the Japanese and nothing
more; but her eyes were constantly following him about, and she came
upon him by design in unexpected places. Akira was too shrewd not to
notice that he was an object of interest to this pale, golden-haired
English maid, and inwardly was puzzled to think why she should pursue
him in this secretive fashion. Mara everlastingly inquired about
Japan, and about its people. She wished to know the manners and
customs of the inhabitants, and entreated the Count to draw
word-pictures of Far-Eastern landscapes. But he observed that she
never asked him questions when anyone else was present. With a
delicate sense of chivalry, he kept silent about this secret
understanding which her odd conduct had brought about between them.
For there was an understanding without doubt. Akira found himself
wondering at times if she was really English, for towards him, at all
events, she did not display the world-wide reserve for which the
island race of the West is famous.
Of course, Squire Colpster seized the first opportunity to question
his guest about the emerald. But Akira professed that he knew little
more than the facts that there was such a stone and that it had been
stolen some months before from the temple. "I have been to Kitzuki,"
said the Count, "as my religion is Shinto, and in Izumo is the oldest
of our shrines. A very wonderful building it is, and was built in
legendary ages by order of the Sun-goddess."
"But the same temple surely does not exist now?"
"Oh, no. It has been rebuilt twenty-eight times, and----"
The Squire interrupted him with an exclamation. "I remember! Lafcadio
Hearn says that in one of his books."
"He was a very clever man, and loved our people," replied Akira
quietly.
"Yes! yes!" Colpster nodded absently. "It is strange that he did not
say anything about the Mikado Jewel."
"It is not generally shown to strangers," explained the Japanese. "I
have seen it myself, of course."
"What is it like?"
"Like a chrysanthemum blossom of green jade with an emerald in the
centre, Mr. Colpster. I believe it was given to the shrine by one of
our Emperors, called Go Yojo."
"It was; and he received it from Shogun Ieyasu."
Akira fixed his sharp black eyes on the tired face of his host. "You
seem--pardon me--to know a great deal about this jewel," he observed
inquiringly.
"I ought to. The emerald belonged to our family centuries ago."
"You astonish me."
"I thought I would!" cried the Squire triumphantly. "Yes; an ancestor
of mine gave the emerald to Queen Elizabeth, and she sent it, through
an English pilot called Will Adams, to Akbar, the Emperor of India.
Adams, however, was wrecked on your coasts, Count, and presented the
jewel to Ieyasu."
"How very interesting," said Akira, his usually passive Oriental face
betraying his wonder. "Thank you for telling me all this, Mr.
Colpster. I must relate it to the priests of the Kitzuki Temple, when
I return to my own land. I do so in a month or two," he added
courteously.
"But the Jewel is now lost!"
"So I understand. I read the report of the death of your housekeeper."
Colpster gazed in astonishment at the little man. "Did that interest
you?"
"Naturally," rejoined Akira, unmoved, "seeing that her death was
connected with the Mikado Jewel."
"Are you sure that it is the same?" asked Colpster breathlessly.
"Assuredly, from the description. I expect the thief, whosoever he
was, brought the emerald to London."
"But who stole it from Miss Carrol?"
Akira shrugged his shoulders and spread out his small hands. "Alas! I
do not know. But you should, Mr. Colpster, seeing that the thief
proposed to transfer it to your housekeeper through Miss Carrol?" He
looked very directly at his host as he spoke.
The Squire reflected for a few minutes. "I will be frank with you,
Count," he observed earnestly. "That emerald brought good luck to our
family, and since it has left our possession, we have had misfortunes
and losses. I wished to get back the jewel and gave Basil a sum of
money to----"
"To offer to buy it back," interrupted Akira, nodding. "Yes, I know.
You sent him on a dangerous errand, Mr. Colpster. But for me he would
have been murdered, as perhaps you know."
"Basil told me the story," said Colpster, drawing himself up stiffly;
"but I cannot really agree with you as to the danger. I merely offered
to buy back what belonged to an ancestor of mine."
"Your ancestor parted with it," said Akira, readily and rather dryly,
"so, as the stone has become a sacred one, it was impossible for the
priests to take money for it. I know Dane had nothing to do with its
disappearance."
"Ah!" the Squire became cautious. "I don't know who had anything to do
with the theft. I wish I did."
"What then?"
"I would seek out the thief and regain the jewel."
"By your own showing the thief parted with the emerald to Miss
Carrol," was Akira's quiet remark. "That it was taken from her is
strange."
"Oh, I don't think so, Count. Some thief saw Miss Carrol looking at
it--you remember, of course, the details given at the inquest--and
snatched it."
Akira was silent for a few moments. "Mr. Colpster," he said earnestly,
"if you are wise, you will make no attempt to regain this stone. It
brought your family good luck centuries ago, but if it comes into your
possession again, it will bring bad luck."
"How do you, know?"
"I don't know for certain; I don't even know why it was snatched from
Miss Carrol, or where it is now," said Akira coldly, "but I do know,"
he added with great emphasis, "that since the emerald has been adapted
to certain uses in the Shinto Temple at Kitzuki, the powers it
possesses must be entirely changed."
"Oh, I don't believe it has such powers," said the Squire roughly.
"Yet you believe that it will bring you good luck," said Akira with a
dry little cough. "Isn't that rather illogical, sir?"
Mr. Colpster could find no rejoinder to this very leading question,
and dropped the subject. It was very plain that Akira knew very little
about the matter, and also it was dangerous to speak to him on the
subject. If, indeed, the jewel was in the possession of a London
thief, it might be recovered sooner or later. And if Akira knew that
it had again passed into the possession of the Colpster family, he
might get his ambassador to claim it for Japan. The Squire rather
regretted that he had spoken of the matter at all, since his
explanation might arouse his guest's curiosity. But as the days passed
away, and Akira did not again refer to the abruptly terminated
conversation, Colpster thought that he was mistaken. The Japanese
really was indifferent to the loss of the Jewel, and no doubt had
never given the subject a second thought. But the Squire determined,
should he learn anything from Harry Pentreddle, to keep his knowledge
to himself.
"Akira doesn't care," he meditated; "but one never knows. If I can get
the emerald by some miracle, he may want it for Kitzuki again. I shall
hold my tongue for the future. I was a fool to speak of the matter."
Having decided to act in this manner, he warned Theodore and Basil and
Mara not to refer in any way to the Mikado Jewel. Yet, strangely
enough, he did not warn the person who knew most to hold her tongue.
It therefore came about that one day, while Patricia was showing the
gardens to Akira, he abruptly mentioned the subject of the inquest and
incidentally touched on her adventure in Hyde Park.
"Were you not afraid, Miss Carrol?"
"Yes and no. I was not afraid until the emerald was taken from me,"
said Patricia frankly.
"Why?" asked the Count politely, and with seeming indifference.
She hesitated. "I fear you will think me silly." Then in reply to his
wave of a hand that such an idea would never enter his head, she added
hastily: "When I held the emerald I felt a power radiating out from
it."
"Ah!" the Japanese started in spite of his usual self-command. "Then
you have occult powers and sight and feeling and hearing?"
"I have not," replied Patricia, vexed with herself that she had spoken
so freely. "I am a very commonplace person indeed, Count. I felt that
feeling because I was worried and hungry."
"Naturally!" muttered Akira to himself; "you get in touch with it when
the physical body is weak."
"Get in touch with what?" asked Patricia crossly, for she began to
think that this beady-eyed little man was making game of her.
"With what you felt; with what you saw."
"I shan't say anything more about the matter." Patricia turned away
with great dignity. "I'm sorry I spoke at all."
"Your secret is safe with me, Miss Carrol."
"It isn't a secret. Mr. Colpster and his two nephews know."
"I don't suppose they understand."
"Mr. Theodore Dane does!" snapped Miss Carrol fractiously, for the
persistence of the man was getting on her nerves.
"Yes," said Akira with a ghostly smile; "in a way; but he doesn't know
enough. Pity for him that he doesn't."
"What are you talking about, Count?"
"Nonsense!" he replied promptly; "after all, Miss Carrol, I am here to
play."
"I wonder you came here at all to such a quiet place."
"Oh, I don't care for orgies, Miss Carrol. But if you ask me, I wonder
also why I am here."
Patricia felt that he was speaking truthfully and turned on him with a
look of amazement. From all she had seen of the small Japanese, she
judged that he was a man who knew his own mind. As she looked, by some
telepathic process he guessed what was in hers. "Sometimes I do," he
answered; "but on this occasion I don't--exactly"--and he drawled the
last word slowly.
Patricia almost jumped. "You are a very uncomfortable man," she
remarked.
"The East and the West, dear lady--they never meet without
misunderstandings."
This cryptic remark closed the conversation, and they went in to
afternoon tea. Akira said no more, nor did he explain his puzzling
conversation in the least. However, he still remembered it, for every
time he looked at Patricia he smiled so enigmatically that the mother
which is in every woman made her wish to slap him and send him to bed
without any supper.
That same evening in the drawing-room a strange thing took place,
which made Patricia wonder more than ever. Theodore had been
performing some conjuring tricks with cards at which Akira smiled
politely. Basil had sung, and she had played a sonata of Beethoven.
Feeling tired, no doubt, of Shakespeare and the musical glasses, Mr.
Colpster had stolen to his study to look at his beloved family tree.
The young people had the drawing-room to themselves. As all save
Mara--who invariably declined to contribute to the gaiety of any
evening--had done his or her part, it was the turn of the Japanese.
"Amuse us in some way, Count," commanded Patricia, crossing to a sofa,
and throwing herself luxuriously on the silken cushions.
"Alas! I am so foolish, I know not how to amuse. I have told you so
much of my own country that you must be tired."
"No! No! No!" cried Mara, with shining eyes and an alert manner. "I
never grow weary of hearing about Japan."
"Why?" asked the Count, half-closing his eyes.
Mara's face became strange and cold. "I don't know," she said, in a
hesitating manner. "I seem to know Japan."
"But, Mara," cried Basil, staring, "you have never been there!"
"All the same I know it, and especially I know the Temple of Kitzuki."
"Ah! but you _were_ there!" put in Theodore, glancing at the Count,
whose eyes were curiously intent upon the girl's pale face.
"How? When?" he asked suddenly.
"She went in her astral body in search for the Mikado Jewel, and----"
"Don't talk of these things," interrupted Mara, in an angry tone. "The
Count doesn't want to hear such rubbish."
"Of course; it is all rubbish," said Akira promptly; but Patricia,
mindful of his afternoon conversation, did not believe that he spoke
as he felt.
"Ah!" sneered Theodore quietly, "you are one of the scoffers. Yet I
thought that the East believed in such things."
"We believe in much we never talk about," replied Akira calmly. Then
there was a pause, until he suddenly produced from his pocket a bamboo
flute. "I can play this," he said, with his eyes on Mara, as though he
addressed himself to her; "it is a simple Japanese instrument. Have
you a drum?"
Basil, who was addressed, laughed. "I don't think so. There's the
dinner-gong."
"That will do," said Akira serenely. "Would you mind getting it and
beating it rhythmically like a tom-tom--softly, of course, so as not
to drown the notes of my flute. And a hand-bell," he added, casting
his looks round the room.
"You are arranging an orchestra," laughed Basil, going out to fetch
the gong.
"Here is a bell!" cried Mara, taking a small silver hand-bell from a
table covered with nicknacks.
"Hold it, please."
"But what am I to do with it?" asked the girl, bewildered.
"The music I play will tell you," said Akira, somewhat grimly, and
then Patricia began to see that there was some meaning in all this
preparation. More, that the same was in some hidden way connected with
Mara. However, she said nothing, but waited events.
Presently Basil, tall and slim, returned, carrying the brazen gong and
sat down to flourish the stick. "Punch and Judy," said Basil; "now for
it."
Akira said nothing. He looked at Patricia and Theodore, who were
staring at him with astonishment, and at Basil laughing over the gong,
and finally at Mara, who held the hand-bell and appeared puzzled.
Suddenly the Japanese rose from his seat, and, crossing to the fire,
threw something into it. Immediately a thick white smoke poured into
the room, and a strong perfume came to Patricia's nostrils, which
seemed to be familiar.
"The incense of Moses," she heard Theodore mutter; "hang it, the
fellow does know something of these things!"
Mara also smelt the perfumed smoke. Her eyes grew fixed, her nostrils
dilated and--as Patricia had seen in Theodore's room--she began to
make a shaking motion with both hands. And, as formerly, she closed
them together, holding the silver bell, mouth downward. As the
fragrant smoke was wafted through the room, the shrill piping of the
flute was heard, and Basil, according to his instructions, began to
beat a low, muffled, monotonous accompaniment on the gong. The music
sounded weird and Eastern, and was unlike anything Patricia had ever
heard before. The stupefying incense and the smoke and the sobbing
flute, wailing above the throbbing of the gong, made her head swim.
Suddenly Mara, as if she was moving in her sleep, rose slowly and
walked into the centre of the room. There she began to move with
swaying motion in a circle, shaking the silver bell with closed hands.
Her feet scarcely made any figures, as she only walked rapidly round
and round, but the upper part of her body swung from side to side, and
bent backward and forward. It was like an Indian nautch, weird and
uncanny. Basil seemed to think so, for he stopped his measured
beating, but the smoke still wreathed itself through the room in
serpentine coils, the flute shrilled loud and piercing, and Mara
danced as in a dream. All at once she reeled and the bell crashed on
the floor. Basil flung down the gong and sprang forward.
"She is fainting," he cried angrily, catching Mara in his arms.
"Akira, what the devil does this mean? She is ill!"
"No! No!" said Mara, as the flute stopped and the scent of the incense
grew faint. "I am not ill, I am--I am--what have I been doing?" and
she looked vacantly round the room.
Akira laid aside his flute and spoke with suppressed excitement. "You
have been performing the Miko dance," he said, trying to control
himself.
"Miko! The dance of the Miko!" cried Mara, stretching out her hand; "I
know, I remember. The Dance of the Divineress! At last. At----"
"Mara, you are ill!" cried Basil roughly, and catching her by the arm
he hurried her, still protesting, out of the room.
"What does it mean?" asked Patricia, who had risen.
"Don't _you_ know?" asked Akira, looking at Theodore.
"No," said Dane, puzzled and a trifle awed. "When Mara smells that
scent, she always dances in that queer fashion. But I never saw her
keep it up for so long as she has done to-night. Where did you get
that incense!"
"It is an old Japanese incense," said Akira carelessly; then he turned
to Patricia. "I now know why I have been brought here," he said.
"I don't understand," stammered the girl nervously.
"I shall explain. I did not intend to come to Beckleigh, but I was
compelled to come. You, with your sixth sense, should know what I
mean, Miss Carrol. I wondered why I was brought to this out-of-the-way
place. _Now_ I know. It was to meet a former Miko of the Temple of
Kitzuki. Oh, yes, I am sure. I now know why Miss Colpster declared
that she remembered my country and loved to hear me talk about it. She
is a reincarnation of the dancing priestess who lived ages since in
the province of Izumo."
"Do you believe that?" asked Patricia scornfully.
Akira nodded. "All Japanese believe in reincarnation," he said, in a
decisive tone; "it is the foundation of their belief. You believe
also?"
Theodore, to whom he spoke, nodded. "Yes. And I wish--I wish----" he
turned pale.
Akira looked at him imperiously. "Wish nothing," he said; "she is not
for you; she is not for the West; she is for Dai Nippon."